MADISON, Wis. — Trudy Le Beau has voted in every major election since she turned 18 — a half-century of civic participation that has gotten increasingly difficult as her multiple sclerosis progressed. Now, with no use of her arms or legs, the Wisconsin woman relies on her husband to help her fill out and return a ballot.
This year, it seemed for the first time that the 68-year-old would have to choose between her physical health and voting.
After the Wisconsin Supreme Court outlawed ballot drop boxes in July, the state’s top election official cited a state law that said voters had to place their own absentee ballots in the mail or return them to clerks in person.
“I certainly don’t want to send my husband to jail because he put my ballot in the mailbox,” Le Beau said. “I would have to find some way of putting my ballot in my teeth and carrying it to the clerk’s office.”
Fortunately for Le Beau, she and other Wisconsin voters with disabilities can get the help they need to return their ballots this November after a federal judge last month ruled that the Voting Rights Act, which allows for voter assistance, trumps state law.
In other states, however, battles continue over ballot assistance and other voting laws that harm voters with disabilities. As voters push back, challenges have arisen in the past two years to laws and practices in at least eight states that make it difficult or impossible for people with certain disabilities to vote.
A federal judge in June struck down voter assistance restrictions in sweeping changes to election laws passed by Texas Republicans last year that in part limited the help that voters with disabilities or limited English proficiency could get. Under the law, a voter could only receive assistance reading or marking a ballot, not returning one.
In July in North Carolina, a federal judge blocked state laws that limited people with disabilities to receiving ballot assistance only from a close relative or legal guardian. Restrictions on ballot assistance still stand in several other states, including Kansas, Iowa, Kentucky and Missouri. In Missouri, an ongoing lawsuit challenges a 1977 state law that says no one can assist more than one voter per election.
A Kansas judge in April dismissed parts of a lawsuit challenging voter assistance restrictions, saying the state’s interest in preventing voter fraud outweighed concerns about voters who may not get…
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